The present invention relates to a liquid container which stores liquid to be supplied to a liquid consuming apparatus therein, and is removably mountable to a container mounting part of the liquid consuming apparatus.
The liquid consuming apparatus includes, as a representative example thereof, a liquid ejecting apparatus, which ejects a liquid droplet from an ejection head. This liquid ejecting apparatus includes, as a representative example thereof, an ink jet type recording apparatus provided with an ink jet type recording head for recording an image. Other examples of the liquid ejecting apparatus include, for example, an apparatus having color material ejection head used in manufacture of a color filter of a liquid crystal display or the like, an apparatus having an electrode material (conductive paste) ejection head used in electrode formation of an organic EL display, a field emission display (FED) or the like, an apparatus having bioorganic matter ejection head used in biochip manufacture, and an apparatus having a sample ejection head as a precision pipette.
The ink jet type recording apparatus that is representative of the liquid jet apparatus is comparatively less noisy in printing, and can form fine dots with high density. Therefore, the ink jet type recording apparatus is presently used in various printing including color printing.
As a liquid supply system to the liquid consuming apparatus of which the ink jet type recording apparatus is representative, such a system is available, in which the liquid is supplied from a liquid container that stores the liquid therein to the liquid consuming apparatus. Further, in this liquid supply system using the liquid container, the liquid container is generally constituted as a cartridge removably mountable to the liquid consuming apparatus so that a user can exchange the liquid container easily when the liquid in the liquid container is consumed.
Generally, the ink jet type recording apparatus has a carriage that is equipped with a recording head for ejecting an ink droplet and reciprocates along a recording surface of a recording medium. As an ink supply system from the ink cartridge to the recording head, there is a system in which the ink cartridge is mounted on the carriage and the ink is supplied to the recording head from the ink cartridge reciprocating together with the recording head. Further, as another system, there is a system in which the ink cartridge is mounted onto a case or the like of an apparatus body and the ink is supplied through an ink flowing path formed by a flexible tube or the like from the ink cartridge to the recording head.
In any of the above ink supply systems, it is necessary to mount and fix the ink cartridge in a predetermined position of the apparatus body readily and surely. Further, in exchange of the ink cartridge, it is necessary to remove the ink cartridge from the apparatus body readily and surely.
Therefore, the conventional ink jet type recording apparatus and ink cartridge employ, as a mechanism for surely fixing the ink cartridge in the predetermined position of the apparatus body, for example, a mechanism in which the ink cartridge is pressed and fixed by a fixing lever operated after the ink cartridge is inserted into a cartridge holder of the apparatus body.
Patent Reference 1: WO99/59823
Patent Reference 2: JP2002-19135A
Patent Reference 3: JP2002-254673A
However, such cartridge fixing mechanism requires separate steps performed independently, i.e. an insertion step of the ink cartridge into the cartridge holder and a fixing step by operating the fixing lever after insertion, so that the mounting operation of the ink cartridge to the apparatus body is complicated. Further, this conventional cartridge fixing mechanism also requires two-step operation when the ink cartridge is removed.
Further, such a mechanism is conceivable that realizes fixing of the ink cartridge simultaneously with the insertion step during mounting, but even this case requires a step of releasing the fixing when the ink cartridge is removed. This fixing release step must be performed completely independently of a subsequent operation of pulling out the ink cartridge. Therefore, the removing operation of the ink cartridge becomes complicated.
Further, in the conventional ink jet type recording apparatus and ink cartridge, there are those of such constitution that a memory element (IC) storing data such as the kind of ink and the residual ink amount is provided for the ink cartridge, and an apparatus-side contact to be connected to an IC side electrode is provided on the apparatus body side (for example, cartridge holder).
In a case that the ink cartridge having such IC is mounted onto the apparatus body, it is necessary to surely connect the IC-side electrode to the apparatus-side contact when the ink cartridge is mounted to the apparatus body, and further to surely maintain its connection state. Namely, it is necessary to suppress deviation between the apparatus-side contact and the IC-side electrode in a range enabling electric conduction. For example, it is conceivable to make the dimension of the IC-side electrode larger, to thereby make larger a permissible range of the deviation with respect to the apparatus-side contact. However, this results in a problem that the ink cartridge itself is also larger in size with size increase of the IC-side electrode.
Hence, in order to surely connect the IC-side electrode to the apparatus-side contact, the IC-side electrode of the ink cartridge must be positioned accurately with respect to the apparatus-side contact when the ink cartridge is mounted to the apparatus body. Further, in order to surely maintain the connection between the IC-side electrode of the ink cartridge and the apparatus-side contact, it is desirable that a force acts on the IC-side electrode of the ink cartridge to press the IC-side electrode against the apparatus-side contact.
The invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and its object is to provide a liquid container, which can be mounted onto a liquid consuming apparatus readily and surely.
Another object of the invention is to provide a liquid container including a memory device having an electrode, which electrode can be surely connected to a contact of a liquid consuming apparatus when the liquid container is mounted onto the liquid consuming apparatus.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide a liquid container including a memory device having an electrode, which electrode can surely maintain connection to a contact of a liquid consuming apparatus.